Who took the "Great" out of Great Britain?

My country changed 'overnight'

Great Britain became more commonly called Britain, then the United Kingdom , and now all I hear is the U.K.. UNITED Kingdom . Are they kidding? Seems to be as about united as the United Nations,..

There was a saying reffering to the Victorian era tha 'The sun never set on the British Empire"Apparently it was true, because Britain had so many colonies all over the world that the sun was always shining on one of said colonies whilst the others slept..

I wouldn't even begin to discuss the rights or wrongs of that arangement. It was before my time., and histiry books often vary in their opinions. So I try to stick with the saying "belive half of what you see, and none of what you hear".

However I know what it was like to grow up in Britain when most people still referred to it as Great Britain.

I lived on the west , in Wales. My dad had 7 brothers and sisters who had moved to different parts of the country, therefore I had couisins in Wales, England, Ireland and apparrently our ancestors were Scottish.. As you can imagine that made us a fairly rounded out family of Brits.

When we heard people try to devolop political parties solely for the Welsh, or only for the Scottish people.......Our family's reaction was " For crying out loud!!!!!. You could put the entire British Isles into a corner of one American state...What next? Home rule for Cornwall?(very beautiful little county at the southernmost,west of England. Notice LITTLE.)

About 25 years ago my doctor advised me ,that if at all possible I should move to a warmer climate as it would slow down the deterioration of a bone disease I had developed..Thankfully he was correct and we were able to move. I am still walking, not being wheeled around as would have probably been the case if I'd stayed in the cold, wet climate of Britain....OK, I know it's not Minnessota, or Canada, but trust me Britain can still get pretty cold, and Wales and Ireland extremely wet.. In fact if it is not raining in Wales or Ireland it means that it has either just stopped raining or it is about to start raining..

Living for 20 years in a foreign country my husband and I have tried to learn the language (with varying degrees of success), but we don't expect everyone here to speak English. The children go to school and pick up the language quickly.We don't expect the government here to declare a holiday whenever there's an English holiday. They have more than enough of their own here and we enjoy them. We realise that WE are the foreigners. If we want everything to be as it is in Britain then we should have stayed in Britain., which brings me to my thoughts on what on earth has happened to Britain or should I say U.K.(yuk)????????????

The last time my husband and I went back for a visit, I swear it was almost 2 full days before we spoke to someone who was actually British.Oh, yes people SPOKE to us in English, but with Rumanian accents, Polish accents, Pakistani accents, you name it. When we finally got into a London taxi and heard the familiar "where to, mate?" from a Londoner, we at least knew we hadn't landed in the wrong country.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I firmly believe, we all sleep under the same sky.,There is only one sun and one moon that shines down on all of us. We are all connected simply by the fact that we are all humans. What I am finding hard to grasp is , with a relatively small land mass, immigration at the moment has no limits. If you fill a glass of water. it's full, right?Britain lokks , to me as though it is becoming dangerously close to being FULL.

I say , dangerously, because I spoke to a member of the British National Party (BNP), who was giving out leaflets in the street. . I told him that I'd had the impression that the BNP political party was closely akin to the once German National Party, i.e. Nazis , Hitler.!!! Lest we forget ! His reply was that there are a growing number of British people (yes he used the word British, not U K citizens) who are fed up of being unemployed while the country seems to be getting overun by polish plumbers, Rumanian hotel workers, and muslims who actually believe that Sharia Law should be officially Law in Britain. ...........Pardon?.... It seems the people who advocate this must not be offended(why not? I'm often offended. that's life) Yet , even though in a democratic Britain one dare not offend Islam, there is now a ban on flying the flag of St George.....You especially must not wave an English flag at an international Rugby or Football match,...............Hello??? This man is winding me up surely. The English flag IN England might be offenssive? Tough!!. "So what about the Union Jack?" I asked"Yoiu know the British flag that normally flies over Buckingham Palace or wherever the queen happens to be residing at any given period of time?"

"Er, well", says my rapidly becoming new best friend "I think you'll find it's not allowed at International matches, but that may only refer to the white St. George flag"

"so you mean at International games of Rugby or football played IN Britain?"

"Yep !"See why the BNP numbers are growing......"

I'm sorry but I find that subtle and scary. I'm no xenophobe, after all I'm the foreigner living here in Spain, but I don't get it with what is happening to the country i grew up in., and I don't believe the rubbishy answer that Brits don't want the jobs the Eastern Europeans are doing.

I'll be visiting my daughter next month for the........um.....er Winter Holiday????? Guess Id better check what I'm allowed to call it before I land on British soil.

Comments

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Author

Dim Flaxenwick 4 years agofrom Great Britain

Cornwall is beautiful. I meant no offence. The entire hub was tongue in cheek. Very sorry to have offended you.

cBt 4 years ago

Please don't disrespect Cornwall- I was born and grew up there- It is small, yes, but then again Sealand is a microstate and its barely the size of a village.

please be more considerate,

cBt

Author

Dim Flaxenwick 5 years agofrom Great Britain

Isn´t it a weird feeling to feel like a foreigner in your home country? l´m glad you could relate but l hope you are happy in Houston.

Thanks for reading my hubs and taking the time to comment.

Angel Ward 5 years agofrom Galveston, TX

I can relate in some ways... I grew up in Southern Louisiana...Cajun Country, and all my family was further East, the only thing I ever say was just basic racism, at most, a few African Americans, and White Americans etc... Now living in Houston, one of the largest port cities in the U.S. Wow, culture shock, there are many places where I feel like the outsider..... it can be tough

Author

Dim Flaxenwick 6 years agofrom Great Britain

Cheers.! Micky.....Glad you still read some my older stuf. Not only did they ´let me in ´ of course but l am reluctingly living here. Take care. God bless

Micky Dee 6 years ago

They have to let Dim in! She is better royalty than the queen!

Barbara C 7 years agofrom Andalucia, Spain

Hi - as an expat, also living in Spain, I enjoyed reading this very much, much of what you say rings true with me as well :))